Irish Fiction – Izzy Reads

The Therapy House by Julie Parsons

The Therapy House by Julie Parsons won Crime Fiction Book of the Year at the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2017.

Set in Dun Laoghaire, it’s the story of two murders, one set in the present, one dating back many years. The crimes are linked through retired Garda Inspector Michael McLoughlin who discovers the body in one case and whose father was the victim in the other.

McLoughlin will be familiar to anyone who has read Parsons previously. He first appeared in her debut novel, Mary, Mary. In The Therapy House, McLoughlin has retired and is now working as a private investigator.

The novel opens strongly with a beautiful description of Judge John Hegarty who is getting ready to go to church. But Hegarty is about to be murdered. The question is by whom? And why?

Too many characters

When McLoughlin discovers Hegarty’s body, this story line takes off but it never really becomes a page turner, partly because so many characters are introduced that it is difficult to keep track of who’s who, particularly as not all of them move the story forward.

The second killing took place many years previously when Jim McLoughlin, also a Garda, was shot during a raid. No one was held to account for the killing but McLoughlin knows who did it and he knows where the killer now lives. The question is, what will he do about it.

As both story lines develop, it emerges that there are links between the two crimes. Ultimately, though, I found The Therapy House a frustrating read. Repeatedly, just as I becoming interested, a chapter would end only for new characters to appear in the next chapter. This lack of continuity became increasingly annoying as I got further into the novel. That said, there is a lot to think about and talk about in this novel which might make The Therapy House a good choice for book clubs, particularly those with an interest in Irish crime fiction.

In Deep Water by Sam Blake

In Deep Water is Sam Blake’s second novel featuring Detective Garda Cat Connolly. A tense crime procedural, it is set in South Dublin and North Wicklow with the action kicking off when Cat’s friend Sarah Jane Hansen goes missing.

A student at DCU, Sarah Jane works part time job as a waitress in a trendy restaurant called The Rookery. She was last seen leaving work when her boss, Billy Roberts, put her in a taxi. According to Roberts, he sent her home because she wasn’t feeling well. But Sarah Jane didn’t make it home and when Cat investigates, she discovers that someone has ransacked Sarah Jane’s flat.

Fears intensify

Then a body turns up and Cat fears the worst. It turns out not to be Sarah Jane but with her friend still missing Cat’s remains worried. Her fears intensify when she discovers a second waitress is also missing.

Is Roberts telling the truth? And what’s his relationship to restaurant owner Richard Farrell?

The investigation leads Cat and her boss Detective Inspector Dawson O’Rourke into a seedy and dangerous world. Every set of CCTV images throws up further questions and the fears for Sarah Jane mount.

Readers of Blake’s first Cat Connolly novel, Little Bones, will enjoy how the relationship between Cat and DI O’Rourke develops in In Deep Water.

This is shaping up into a good series and I’m looking forward to getting to know the central characters a little better the next instalment.

The Good People by Hannah Kent | Review

The Good People by Hannah Kent is an engrossing read.

Set in County Kerry, Ireland in the 1820s it’s a richly imagined story about folk beliefs. This is a very visual, sensory and atmospheric novel. Kent describes water pooled outside a doorstep as “tight with ice”, robins “bloodsmocked against the sky”.

The story centres on three women brought together by a disabled child.

When her husband Martin drops dead at a crossroads, Nóra Leahy is left alone with their grandson Micheál.

The son of her only daughter, Johanna, Micheál was born a healthy infant. But after Johanna’s death, he became sickly and, by the age of 4, could no longer speak nor walk.

When Johanna’s husband leaves Micheál with Nóra and Martin, Nóra hides him away because she doesn’t want the neighbours to see his disabilities. Martin seems to have a connection with the child but Nóra sees only the changes in her grandson and she finds it hard to cope with him. So, after Martin’s death, Nóra hires a maid, Mary Clifford, to help care for the boy. Mary is fourteen and comes from a large family. She is used to caring for young children and is kind and caring to Micheál.

The Good People and Changelings

But soon, stories about Micheál begin to spread and neighbours blame him when things go wrong. Nóra thinks he’s a changeling. She believes the ‘good people’ stole her grandson away and left a disabled child in his place. As she becomes more convinced about this, she grows more distant from the boy.

When neither priest nor doctor can help Micheál, Nóra turns to a a healer. Nance Keogh has ‘the knowledge’ to cure ailments and understands the ‘good people’ so Nóra believes that Nance can restore her grandson.

As Nóra, Nance and Mary attempt help Micheál, their efforts lead to danger and elements of the attempted cures may upset some readers. But, like Hannah Kent’s earlier work, Burial Rites, The Good People is a well-researched and absorbing read that draws you in from the first sentence and hold you till the last. I loved it.

[Disclosure: I received an advance review copy of The Good People via Netgalley]